So lets see, the cost the of the OS went up? Wow?!?! I'm soooo shocked. You mean I can't buy a Camary for $14,000 anymore? What it's now $22,000? Whine, Whine Whine. But I should sue Toyota for making me pay more for what I want....
Come on guys, get off it. An increase in cost is associated with any new technology, this isn't a suprise, the manufacturer doesn't like they can install SuSe or one of the other OS's. But guess what, if you do, you'll sell less machines and then you'll be screaming that it's Microsoft's fault that you're not willing to increase the cost of your PC's by $50 to $100. I think if your approach to business isn't abosorb cost or pass cost along to consumer, which EVERYONE is going to do, then you should go back to remedial economics because you just failed the class.
Costs go up. You don't expect to buy the new Geforce8800 for the same price as the 6800 do you? It's new technology, it's a new OS, and yes, it costs more. Don't want it? Use XP or try Mono. (I'm an.NET developer so I'm loving Mono right now.)
As for no one shipping with Basic, they will. The $399 PC will come with it, and as soon as you start it up, Dell will ask you if you want to upgrade to Premium. If so, enter your CC number here, and place your DVD in the drive and in 20 mins you'll have Premium. Did people forget that the idea of a teired OS is to allow you to only install what you want? Let's sue MS for giving you a choice instead of cramming Ultimate down everyone's throat. Which if they are a true Trust, they would have done. They gave options, and yes the options cost more, that's inflation, that's change, that's 1st year economics.
Want to file an Anti-trust suit? Good, here's where you start. File a suit against Macintosh for bundling software with their OS and use their own commercials against them, (They do more out of the box, because they come with all the stuff you normally have to buy!) That's unfair competition! I can't sell my software to Mac owners because Apple installs it and they don't give them an option to use my programs! Wait.. I program in.NET... oh, sue them for not supporting.NET installs. And sue them for making an OS that doesn't work with my PC programs without an emulator!
You guys get it? The idea of sueing someone for a trust based on monopolistic software goes both ways. The suit against MS was allowed to fall apart for a reason, if you succeeded completely and tried to break up MS, you'd A) Cripple the nation... 84% of US households use MS and would now have to purchase copies of every type of program you can imagine. and B) You'd set precident for other companies to file suit against Apple and Novell, etc anytime they include something that only imporoves the end users experience, but in doing so limits the likelyhood of purchasing another product. (See Symantec trying to sue Apple because the OS is virus resistant...wait arn't they trying to sue MS because of that?)
Within a few years you'd have to buy EVERYTHING on your PC ala carte. You'd plug your computer in, and then have to go to a store and buy a web browser, because your computer wouldn't have one. You'd have to go buy a media player, because your computer wouldn't have one, then you'd have to buy an email program, and FTP program....etc..etc.. and you're basic PC would now cost you $500 more because of the software you had to go out and buy...which brings us back to Acer..
Okay, I'm done ranting now...
Alright, we've seen this before. Someone writes a prgoram to prove something, then runs it, dances around with the results and says, "Hey look over here, I proved that Wikipedia is stealing info from other sites..." But he leaves off his results, how the code works or how he verified that his results were accurate. What if the site that he's crediting the source material with was really the one who stole it in the first place? How many generations and cross matches did he perform? Is it per word and ordered matching, or does it consider the phrases: "We went to work today" and "Went to work today" to be same?
If you'ver going to run an article like this and expect people to take it seriously, we need details. LOTS OF DETAILS.
Does my comment mean I don't think some of the content is uncredited, or stolen? No, it probably is, but anytime anyone presents what amounts to an experiement, it should be held to a scientific standard and subject to peer review, otherwise you end up with a bunch of people thinking something that is fact, is not, and something that is not fact is. People need to be reminded to think critically when we see articles like this, or any article that makes a claim based on "my research" or "my program". Just because you made an experiement that proves your hypothesis, doesn't mean it proves anything. I want more details, I want to review his findings, I want to review his process, and I want to see how deep he dug before he claimed that something in the public domain was actually not credited to its source.
You may want to take a look at the amendments MS is doing to the EULA before all the Mac and Linux Fan Bouys start spouting off about how this is the death of MS...... wait.. too late....
Anyway, Microsoft back tracked on its transferability, only the OEM versions will have the restrictions, the rest are going to have ulimited transferability, just like they did under XP.
As for removing spyware by default... well DUH! It's about time. Do you know how many casual computer users don't hit "clean" when a virus alert comes up? Quite frankly they keep me employed... oh damn... MS may put me out of business if they make their system protect itself and not allow virus's in... wait...now I sound like Symantec.
Before everyone goes nuts, I'm not fond of the DRM stuff that MS is doing or anyone for that matter, but I can see why that seciton of the EULA exists, infact I'm pretty sure the stuff I just saw for stripping DRM from video and music content by using a VM is why this is in there. I'm sure you could come up with a copy paste trick that defeats the content management on documents too... so.. no surprise there. The idea of proteciton is to protect, even if when it's a bad idea.
Prices... no biggie. $259 is nothing. I know.. it sounds like a lot, but it's not. To run the $259 upgrade you'll need a high end PC, and I mean HIGH END, as in, if you spent under $1200 on it, you don't have it. $159, not a biggie, that's what my Pro Upgrade cost anyway...and $99 seems cheap for my $459 pc.
But pricing is minor when it comes to technology, just wait until MS offers a competative upgrade from OSX to Vista Business for $99, and watch Apple threaten lawsuits.... or a competative upgrade from LINUX to Vista Basic for $49...
Anyone who thinks that Vista is going to kill MS should go out and invest in Apple quickly before the stock goes up...Personally, I'm keeping my PC, and I"m upgrading to Vista, and I really don't care what they do to protect their code from pirates, the only thing I did care about was the transferability because I'm an enthusiast who swops hardware on a regular basis, but since they withdrew that, I'm happy.
Btw... just a question... when is someone going to file against Apple for bundling software in it's OS and there by preventing the consumer from having a choice in browsers, video software, web editing software and music? Because I'd reallly like Apple to have to deal with all the third party crap that MS has to deal with just to keep the courts happy.
Okay I can understand pushing IE7, I occasionally still run into XP SP1 machines out there that people are just now updating to SP2... so forcing SP2 and Forcing IE7 are good steps to keeping everyone on the same page....
Now.. if I could only get MS to force the install of.NET 1.1 and.NET 2.0 I'd be a happy camper! I'd finally be able to have people use my.NET programs without telling them to go download and install the framework they've never heard of, but more and more programers in the windows realm are using.
The point here is simply that people who don't understand how technology works shouldn't be the ones in charge of or regulating it.
My personal favorite was the recent comments concerning the internet by a now famous congressman who said simply, "The internet is not a dump truck... it's a series of tubes, and if you try to push too much through the tubes, they get backedup..." And yeah this is the opening arguement on why AT&T should be allowed to have multi-tiered access to the internet.
A good friend of mine works for a medical insurance company and often has to deal with the attorney's on technology issues. They often have to get the court to hire an expert to interpet for the judge in the case. You can imagine what issues that causes... it can take weeks for the judge to hire someone that both sides agree to and the entire time, the clock is ticking and the attorneys are making serious cash.
Short version, someone is going to have to fight Fuji on this one...and from the email I just received, it's not us... but the organization who holds the patent for the system they are "adding on to" intends to.
Long version, government needs to take steps to update systems, such as the copyright system, and patents, and several others to deal better with technology, but they are not remotely qualified to do so. So how do we fix that?
Stephen Walters
The internet... not a dump truck...
Recently my company and several other companies came to the relisation that what we've been doing for years may have been patented in 2004. We pulled the patent description from the online patent warehouse and read through it. The patent was incredibly terse and offered no specifics as to "How" the system really worked. Instead of outlining protocols used, or specific procedures for each step in the process they instead used generic terms such as "A network protocol will be used" it didn't state what protocols were used, nor did it bother to state specifics about formats used for files or their content, instead relying on terms like "images" and "on disk" It made no reference to the standards already in place to accomplish this same procedure, but instead used generic terms again. In it's implementation they are using technology that's the property of a specific orgtanization, but they never mentioned what they were doing or using in the patent. (btw the technology owner is already fighting this in court stating that the standard they built on is their property and an exclusive patent can not be granted to Fuji since it incorporates a patented technology... ug... )
So here's the problem. If you beleive the patent and take it at it's face value, the entire concept of storing images online and having users of a system on the web being able to access and download them is now the propery (as of 2004) of the Fuji corporation...pending the outcome of the legal battle to revoke the patent.
Anyone else see the problem here? If the patent office is so inept and incredibly ill informed that they will grant a patent that doesn't meet the bare minimum of a technology patent, why should it be granted in the first place? Where's the peer review? Where's the investigation to see if the technology attempting to be patented isn't already part of an "industrial domain" or even "public domain"?
Now if Fuji wanted to tie everyone up in court they could claim that any systems that use the same techniques as theirs are patent violations. My rule is, if you don't understand it, you can't pass judgement on it. If you don't understand the technology you can't make judgements as to patents, copyrights or other governing issues. So for the time being... I rule no patents on any software systems. You can copy right your code, you can patent a new technology, but only if you provide specifc code samples and output sample of the technology full schemetics etc....and if your'e building on someone else's technology... you can't patent it!
Stalin once said:
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing.
Those who count the votes decide everything."
In short, why don't we have a paper trail on voting machines? Why are we willing to use a system that stops you from manually recounting? Why are we using machines to vote that can only be coutned by one company?
Why does the Republican controled congress insist on tabling ANY resolution that would force voting machines to conform to the same "Transparent" standards as the old paper system?
Stop, Look and Think about it....
I have a slanted view, but I'll share it anyway. I program in VS 2005, I write ClickOnce Applications, my code works in IE6 and IE7.
ASPX rendered pages work well in Opera, Netscape and Firefox (I do XML validation tests to make sure it does) It fails horribly in Safari (go mac!)
ClickOnce works perfectly in IE6, IE7, and in Opera (with the appropriate setup) and Netscape (with a lot of setup). It fails constantly in FireFox, even with the plugins that are suppose to allow it to function. My advice to all business users who need deployment abilities, use IE6 or 7 it's easy it's fast and you don't have to mess with it.
I'm actually waiting to test Firefox 2, I'm hoping that they fixed the ClickOnce Issues and that it's a stable deployment pathway for us, I have a lot of FireFox fan bouys (who by the way are almost, but not quite as bad as Mac users) and would love to make them happy.
What I don't like in IE7:
Menu bars! Come on! I'm using Vista RC2, and this doens't even make sense in the Vista Interface!
Addons! I don't like that the wrong version of addons like Google, AOL, etc Stop it from working!
Rendering Issues! They fixed the rendering problems in IE6 and now pages that correct pages because it thinks the browser is IE6 are now broken!
Security Overkill on embedded controls, even ones with a genuine digital certificate. (yeah you can turn it down, but it's annoying that it has to be set so high!)
What I do like:
You can start IE7 in safe mode and have it disable all plugins if someone is dumb enough to load MSN toolbar, Google Toolbar or AOL toolbar (Can you tell I have a problem with tool bars?)
Tabbed browsing: gotta have it.
Favorites and History popouts. I know it's a gimick, but I like it.
Zoom! Especially with my MS keyboard's zoom control (Hey I'm older my eyes get tired when I stare at 1600x1050 all day.)
Improved Page Printing (it's minor an most people will never notice it)
Multiple Home pages: I can open my browser, and pop, I have my home site, my work site and my favorite Game o' d month site.
Anyway, my very slanted two cents worth.
So how long before somone builds this to use the API that Symantec and McAfee have made MS put into Vista 64? Not long by my count, all they have to do is install a false version of norton and they've got your system...
Come on guys, this is getting old. Isn't it time to let MS make Vista as secure as Linux so that these jokers can be run out of business?
Step 1: Modify existing virus that infects Norton and McAfee.
Step 2: Use its access to by pass windows new security and infect all of the system.
Step 3: Enjoy can of Moutain Dew and watch Symantec and McAfee back pedal and try to say it's MS's fault for letting people into the kernel.
So who wants to write it?
Thanks Symantec! You saved the Vx's a lot of time and headaches! Whooo!
Here's my business philosphy: Evolve or die. If Symantec couldn't figure out that all they need to do is fall back to file scanning instead of inserting themselves into every aspect of my computer, then they need to go out of business. Everyone else can figure it out, so figure it out, or please close your doors.
They say MS is a monopoly? Name a brand name PC that doesn't come with McAfee or Symantec?
In short, the excuse that parents don't raise their children in a vacuum is what lead to the belief by parental organizations that they can dicate to the rest of the adult society what it can and can not watch, listen to, and play. The responsibility is as follows:
Parents 80%, Society 20%. Most parental groups will tell you it like this: Video Games (50%), Movies (10%), Music (20%) and Schools, books and the rest of the world (25%) and Parents (5%).
As for this case in the words of Samuel Jackson, "Hell yeah!" Parents seem to have forgotten that children are their responsilbity, and their childs actions are their actions. Legally speaking a parent can be held responsible for the civil actions of any child under the age of 18, but that's not the point here.
The parents needed to be better parents, the problem is, they don't know how...they really don't, and its a shame because children suffer because of it. Sometimes being a good parent means watching over your kids and keeping an eye on what they are doing, it means becoming involved in their lives, whether they want you to be or not. It means not letting TV, Movies and Video games act as a substitute for talking and sharing quality time with them.
I know.. people say, "but I don't have time, both of us have to work!" Well tough. If you couldn't handle the responsibility of having a child, and it's a responsibility, not a right, not a privledge, it's a responsibility, you shouldn't have had one.
Someone said in one of the other threads that "There are some really screwed up kids out there.." Well that's true, but a good parent would know that and seek help for them. That includes social programs, theorapy and foster programs in the extreme cases. Maybe they wouldn't be as screwed up if someone spent time with them? or in the words of lovable Bender, "Parents, have you ever tried just sitting your children down, and beating them?" (groans, tongue in cheek)
Time for the people in the UK to show a reaction to the news that their ID has been stolen, by doing what they do in the US, file a law suit against the bank employing the call center. What happens in the call center is partly the responsiblity of corporation that employs them. There.. matter settled....right?
Shipping jobs off to India that "no one wants"? One of my good friends works in a call center in the UK. She, and others like her, are college students trying to get through school. The extra cash helps keep them going and makes it so they can occasionally buy something from one the places that makes something "that no one wants the job to make" It's all interconnected. Everytime you remove an income generator (for people) from an economic system you weaken that system and displace people. Lets face it, they may not be good jobs, and you're not going to spend your life doing it, but their is a need for this sector of jobs. I know, why don't they just get jobs at walmart, or starbucks, or... well think about it... if you keep moving jobs like these out of an economy, it won't be long before people in that economy can't afford to buy the things these people sell. (I know.. slippery slope... poor arguement right?) WRONG, ask Walmart why they withdrew economic support from the GOP (Republican Party) because their politics allow and ecourage (They pay companies to "relocate" to othe coutries, not directly, but they offer "Economic incentives for helping under privledged nations") the movement of jobs to other countries, thus removing the ability of Walmart to sell products, and thus reducing their profits.
People don't get that globalization isn't a good thing, and not just because these people's ID was stolen, but because the process of shipping off "jobs no one wants" take away income from the country who ships it off. The goal of most mega-corporations, and certain governments is to create a global economy where each country depends on another for goods and services, but not just a little like now, completely and totally. It sounds great on paper, every country working towards common goals, sharing the labor and making sure all products and services are provided to all people.... of course the last countries that tried that didn't fair so well.. or am I the only one who remembers pre-democracy USSR? (Wait.. I didn't say globalization is as bad as communism did I?) YES! They both have the same fatal flaw. They assume everyone will do what is best for everyone else. In the real world it doesn't work that way. Greed over rides the drive to do good. Which brings us back to this issue....
If these people were A) in the same country as their callers, it wouldn't have taken a year to catch them. B) If they were paid decent wages, an offer of $9.50USD wouldn't so easily pursuade them to sell the info.
So.. Step 1, sue the company util they move their call center back to the UK. Eliminate their "savings" by causing so much legal damage that they can't afford not to, but remember, you have to agree to drop the law suit, as soon as they agree to move the center back to the UK for at least 10 years. (I can hear it already, that's blackmail!) No, it's the consumer demostrating the one power they all have and using the one resource they all have access to. It's an unfortunate truth in the modern world. You can't legislate change for the good, you can't use consumer power to change behavior (not in the short term anyway) but the threat of a good old law suit can change behavior quickly... very very quickly. Don't beleive it? I have one word for you OREO. Step 2: If you can't get them to move it back, don't do business with them at all... or any other UK financial instiution that uses foreign call centers.
That my rant, respond as you wish.
Interesting reading, you may want to read this article before drawing conclusions about Vista, MacOSx or *nix virus vulnerabilities.
http://www.eset.com/download/whitepapers/Eset_ALee VBJul06.pdf
I found the section on "Social Engineering" especially interesting. With the establishment of the first two MacOSX viruses, (yeah yeah, don't give me the it's a trojan, not a virus arguement that apple uses, it still gets in, exploits your system and messes it up... ) and a whole stream of new Win32 viruses, I found the final statements in theis article particulary important. Virus' don't get into your system by accident, they exploit something about the "system" to get in. The easiest exploit, the user. (Wonder when they are going to make a security vulnerability patch for us?)
There will always be code vulnerabilites in all programs that can be exploited (yes that means you Mac people too!) and there will always be people who want to exploit that flaw for personal gain...or financial gain... or just to get attention. Reducing access to Kernal level operations will go a long way to killing off older virus strains, but it won't eleminate them.
As for Symantec and Mcafee's arguements about MS.. well... I can tell you from being in the IT industry for 17 years... not having access to the kernal is the best thing they can do to these two. They missed viruses on a regular basis under 98, 2000, Me, XP and 2003 that often required full repair installs, or full reinstalls to fix. Keeping them out of the kernal may at least stop them from killing your computer's performance while they fail to protect you.
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So lets see, the cost the of the OS went up? Wow?!?! I'm soooo shocked. You mean I can't buy a Camary for $14,000 anymore? What it's now $22,000? Whine, Whine Whine. But I should sue Toyota for making me pay more for what I want.... .NET developer so I'm loving Mono right now.)
.NET... oh, sue them for not supporting .NET installs. And sue them for making an OS that doesn't work with my PC programs without an emulator!
Come on guys, get off it. An increase in cost is associated with any new technology, this isn't a suprise, the manufacturer doesn't like they can install SuSe or one of the other OS's. But guess what, if you do, you'll sell less machines and then you'll be screaming that it's Microsoft's fault that you're not willing to increase the cost of your PC's by $50 to $100. I think if your approach to business isn't abosorb cost or pass cost along to consumer, which EVERYONE is going to do, then you should go back to remedial economics because you just failed the class.
Costs go up. You don't expect to buy the new Geforce8800 for the same price as the 6800 do you? It's new technology, it's a new OS, and yes, it costs more. Don't want it? Use XP or try Mono. (I'm an
As for no one shipping with Basic, they will. The $399 PC will come with it, and as soon as you start it up, Dell will ask you if you want to upgrade to Premium. If so, enter your CC number here, and place your DVD in the drive and in 20 mins you'll have Premium. Did people forget that the idea of a teired OS is to allow you to only install what you want? Let's sue MS for giving you a choice instead of cramming Ultimate down everyone's throat. Which if they are a true Trust, they would have done. They gave options, and yes the options cost more, that's inflation, that's change, that's 1st year economics. Want to file an Anti-trust suit? Good, here's where you start. File a suit against Macintosh for bundling software with their OS and use their own commercials against them, (They do more out of the box, because they come with all the stuff you normally have to buy!) That's unfair competition! I can't sell my software to Mac owners because Apple installs it and they don't give them an option to use my programs! Wait.. I program in
You guys get it? The idea of sueing someone for a trust based on monopolistic software goes both ways. The suit against MS was allowed to fall apart for a reason, if you succeeded completely and tried to break up MS, you'd A) Cripple the nation... 84% of US households use MS and would now have to purchase copies of every type of program you can imagine. and B) You'd set precident for other companies to file suit against Apple and Novell, etc anytime they include something that only imporoves the end users experience, but in doing so limits the likelyhood of purchasing another product. (See Symantec trying to sue Apple because the OS is virus resistant...wait arn't they trying to sue MS because of that?)
Within a few years you'd have to buy EVERYTHING on your PC ala carte. You'd plug your computer in, and then have to go to a store and buy a web browser, because your computer wouldn't have one. You'd have to go buy a media player, because your computer wouldn't have one, then you'd have to buy an email program, and FTP program....etc..etc.. and you're basic PC would now cost you $500 more because of the software you had to go out and buy...which brings us back to Acer.. Okay, I'm done ranting now...
Alright, we've seen this before. Someone writes a prgoram to prove something, then runs it, dances around with the results and says, "Hey look over here, I proved that Wikipedia is stealing info from other sites..." But he leaves off his results, how the code works or how he verified that his results were accurate. What if the site that he's crediting the source material with was really the one who stole it in the first place? How many generations and cross matches did he perform? Is it per word and ordered matching, or does it consider the phrases: "We went to work today" and "Went to work today" to be same?
If you'ver going to run an article like this and expect people to take it seriously, we need details. LOTS OF DETAILS.
Does my comment mean I don't think some of the content is uncredited, or stolen? No, it probably is, but anytime anyone presents what amounts to an experiement, it should be held to a scientific standard and subject to peer review, otherwise you end up with a bunch of people thinking something that is fact, is not, and something that is not fact is. People need to be reminded to think critically when we see articles like this, or any article that makes a claim based on "my research" or "my program". Just because you made an experiement that proves your hypothesis, doesn't mean it proves anything. I want more details, I want to review his findings, I want to review his process, and I want to see how deep he dug before he claimed that something in the public domain was actually not credited to its source.
You may want to take a look at the amendments MS is doing to the EULA before all the Mac and Linux Fan Bouys start spouting off about how this is the death of MS.... .. wait.. too late....
Anyway, Microsoft back tracked on its transferability, only the OEM versions will have the restrictions, the rest are going to have ulimited transferability, just like they did under XP.
As for removing spyware by default... well DUH! It's about time. Do you know how many casual computer users don't hit "clean" when a virus alert comes up? Quite frankly they keep me employed... oh damn... MS may put me out of business if they make their system protect itself and not allow virus's in... wait...now I sound like Symantec.
Before everyone goes nuts, I'm not fond of the DRM stuff that MS is doing or anyone for that matter, but I can see why that seciton of the EULA exists, infact I'm pretty sure the stuff I just saw for stripping DRM from video and music content by using a VM is why this is in there. I'm sure you could come up with a copy paste trick that defeats the content management on documents too... so.. no surprise there. The idea of proteciton is to protect, even if when it's a bad idea.
Prices... no biggie. $259 is nothing. I know.. it sounds like a lot, but it's not. To run the $259 upgrade you'll need a high end PC, and I mean HIGH END, as in, if you spent under $1200 on it, you don't have it. $159, not a biggie, that's what my Pro Upgrade cost anyway...and $99 seems cheap for my $459 pc.
But pricing is minor when it comes to technology, just wait until MS offers a competative upgrade from OSX to Vista Business for $99, and watch Apple threaten lawsuits.... or a competative upgrade from LINUX to Vista Basic for $49...
Anyone who thinks that Vista is going to kill MS should go out and invest in Apple quickly before the stock goes up...Personally, I'm keeping my PC, and I"m upgrading to Vista, and I really don't care what they do to protect their code from pirates, the only thing I did care about was the transferability because I'm an enthusiast who swops hardware on a regular basis, but since they withdrew that, I'm happy.
Btw... just a question... when is someone going to file against Apple for bundling software in it's OS and there by preventing the consumer from having a choice in browsers, video software, web editing software and music? Because I'd reallly like Apple to have to deal with all the third party crap that MS has to deal with just to keep the courts happy.
Okay I can understand pushing IE7, I occasionally still run into XP SP1 machines out there that people are just now updating to SP2... so forcing SP2 and Forcing IE7 are good steps to keeping everyone on the same page.... Now.. if I could only get MS to force the install of .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0 I'd be a happy camper! I'd finally be able to have people use my .NET programs without telling them to go download and install the framework they've never heard of, but more and more programers in the windows realm are using.
The point here is simply that people who don't understand how technology works shouldn't be the ones in charge of or regulating it.
My personal favorite was the recent comments concerning the internet by a now famous congressman who said simply, "The internet is not a dump truck... it's a series of tubes, and if you try to push too much through the tubes, they get backedup..." And yeah this is the opening arguement on why AT&T should be allowed to have multi-tiered access to the internet.
A good friend of mine works for a medical insurance company and often has to deal with the attorney's on technology issues. They often have to get the court to hire an expert to interpet for the judge in the case. You can imagine what issues that causes... it can take weeks for the judge to hire someone that both sides agree to and the entire time, the clock is ticking and the attorneys are making serious cash.
Short version, someone is going to have to fight Fuji on this one...and from the email I just received, it's not us... but the organization who holds the patent for the system they are "adding on to" intends to.
Long version, government needs to take steps to update systems, such as the copyright system, and patents, and several others to deal better with technology, but they are not remotely qualified to do so. So how do we fix that?
Stephen Walters The internet... not a dump truck...
Recently my company and several other companies came to the relisation that what we've been doing for years may have been patented in 2004. We pulled the patent description from the online patent warehouse and read through it. The patent was incredibly terse and offered no specifics as to "How" the system really worked. Instead of outlining protocols used, or specific procedures for each step in the process they instead used generic terms such as "A network protocol will be used" it didn't state what protocols were used, nor did it bother to state specifics about formats used for files or their content, instead relying on terms like "images" and "on disk" It made no reference to the standards already in place to accomplish this same procedure, but instead used generic terms again. In it's implementation they are using technology that's the property of a specific orgtanization, but they never mentioned what they were doing or using in the patent. (btw the technology owner is already fighting this in court stating that the standard they built on is their property and an exclusive patent can not be granted to Fuji since it incorporates a patented technology... ug... ) So here's the problem. If you beleive the patent and take it at it's face value, the entire concept of storing images online and having users of a system on the web being able to access and download them is now the propery (as of 2004) of the Fuji corporation...pending the outcome of the legal battle to revoke the patent. Anyone else see the problem here? If the patent office is so inept and incredibly ill informed that they will grant a patent that doesn't meet the bare minimum of a technology patent, why should it be granted in the first place? Where's the peer review? Where's the investigation to see if the technology attempting to be patented isn't already part of an "industrial domain" or even "public domain"? Now if Fuji wanted to tie everyone up in court they could claim that any systems that use the same techniques as theirs are patent violations. My rule is, if you don't understand it, you can't pass judgement on it. If you don't understand the technology you can't make judgements as to patents, copyrights or other governing issues. So for the time being... I rule no patents on any software systems. You can copy right your code, you can patent a new technology, but only if you provide specifc code samples and output sample of the technology full schemetics etc....and if your'e building on someone else's technology... you can't patent it!
Stalin once said: "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." In short, why don't we have a paper trail on voting machines? Why are we willing to use a system that stops you from manually recounting? Why are we using machines to vote that can only be coutned by one company? Why does the Republican controled congress insist on tabling ANY resolution that would force voting machines to conform to the same "Transparent" standards as the old paper system? Stop, Look and Think about it....
I have a slanted view, but I'll share it anyway. I program in VS 2005, I write ClickOnce Applications, my code works in IE6 and IE7. ASPX rendered pages work well in Opera, Netscape and Firefox (I do XML validation tests to make sure it does) It fails horribly in Safari (go mac!) ClickOnce works perfectly in IE6, IE7, and in Opera (with the appropriate setup) and Netscape (with a lot of setup). It fails constantly in FireFox, even with the plugins that are suppose to allow it to function. My advice to all business users who need deployment abilities, use IE6 or 7 it's easy it's fast and you don't have to mess with it. I'm actually waiting to test Firefox 2, I'm hoping that they fixed the ClickOnce Issues and that it's a stable deployment pathway for us, I have a lot of FireFox fan bouys (who by the way are almost, but not quite as bad as Mac users) and would love to make them happy. What I don't like in IE7: Menu bars! Come on! I'm using Vista RC2, and this doens't even make sense in the Vista Interface! Addons! I don't like that the wrong version of addons like Google, AOL, etc Stop it from working! Rendering Issues! They fixed the rendering problems in IE6 and now pages that correct pages because it thinks the browser is IE6 are now broken! Security Overkill on embedded controls, even ones with a genuine digital certificate. (yeah you can turn it down, but it's annoying that it has to be set so high!) What I do like: You can start IE7 in safe mode and have it disable all plugins if someone is dumb enough to load MSN toolbar, Google Toolbar or AOL toolbar (Can you tell I have a problem with tool bars?) Tabbed browsing: gotta have it. Favorites and History popouts. I know it's a gimick, but I like it. Zoom! Especially with my MS keyboard's zoom control (Hey I'm older my eyes get tired when I stare at 1600x1050 all day.) Improved Page Printing (it's minor an most people will never notice it) Multiple Home pages: I can open my browser, and pop, I have my home site, my work site and my favorite Game o' d month site. Anyway, my very slanted two cents worth.
So how long before somone builds this to use the API that Symantec and McAfee have made MS put into Vista 64? Not long by my count, all they have to do is install a false version of norton and they've got your system... Come on guys, this is getting old. Isn't it time to let MS make Vista as secure as Linux so that these jokers can be run out of business?
Step 1: Modify existing virus that infects Norton and McAfee.
Step 2: Use its access to by pass windows new security and infect all of the system.
Step 3: Enjoy can of Moutain Dew and watch Symantec and McAfee back pedal and try to say it's MS's fault for letting people into the kernel.
So who wants to write it?
Thanks Symantec! You saved the Vx's a lot of time and headaches! Whooo!
Here's my business philosphy: Evolve or die. If Symantec couldn't figure out that all they need to do is fall back to file scanning instead of inserting themselves into every aspect of my computer, then they need to go out of business. Everyone else can figure it out, so figure it out, or please close your doors.
They say MS is a monopoly? Name a brand name PC that doesn't come with McAfee or Symantec?
In short, the excuse that parents don't raise their children in a vacuum is what lead to the belief by parental organizations that they can dicate to the rest of the adult society what it can and can not watch, listen to, and play. The responsibility is as follows: Parents 80%, Society 20%. Most parental groups will tell you it like this: Video Games (50%), Movies (10%), Music (20%) and Schools, books and the rest of the world (25%) and Parents (5%). As for this case in the words of Samuel Jackson, "Hell yeah!" Parents seem to have forgotten that children are their responsilbity, and their childs actions are their actions. Legally speaking a parent can be held responsible for the civil actions of any child under the age of 18, but that's not the point here. The parents needed to be better parents, the problem is, they don't know how...they really don't, and its a shame because children suffer because of it. Sometimes being a good parent means watching over your kids and keeping an eye on what they are doing, it means becoming involved in their lives, whether they want you to be or not. It means not letting TV, Movies and Video games act as a substitute for talking and sharing quality time with them. I know.. people say, "but I don't have time, both of us have to work!" Well tough. If you couldn't handle the responsibility of having a child, and it's a responsibility, not a right, not a privledge, it's a responsibility, you shouldn't have had one. Someone said in one of the other threads that "There are some really screwed up kids out there.." Well that's true, but a good parent would know that and seek help for them. That includes social programs, theorapy and foster programs in the extreme cases. Maybe they wouldn't be as screwed up if someone spent time with them? or in the words of lovable Bender, "Parents, have you ever tried just sitting your children down, and beating them?" (groans, tongue in cheek)
Time for the people in the UK to show a reaction to the news that their ID has been stolen, by doing what they do in the US, file a law suit against the bank employing the call center. What happens in the call center is partly the responsiblity of corporation that employs them. There.. matter settled....right? Shipping jobs off to India that "no one wants"? One of my good friends works in a call center in the UK. She, and others like her, are college students trying to get through school. The extra cash helps keep them going and makes it so they can occasionally buy something from one the places that makes something "that no one wants the job to make" It's all interconnected. Everytime you remove an income generator (for people) from an economic system you weaken that system and displace people. Lets face it, they may not be good jobs, and you're not going to spend your life doing it, but their is a need for this sector of jobs. I know, why don't they just get jobs at walmart, or starbucks, or... well think about it... if you keep moving jobs like these out of an economy, it won't be long before people in that economy can't afford to buy the things these people sell. (I know .. slippery slope... poor arguement right?) WRONG, ask Walmart why they withdrew economic support from the GOP (Republican Party) because their politics allow and ecourage (They pay companies to "relocate" to othe coutries, not directly, but they offer "Economic incentives for helping under privledged nations") the movement of jobs to other countries, thus removing the ability of Walmart to sell products, and thus reducing their profits.
People don't get that globalization isn't a good thing, and not just because these people's ID was stolen, but because the process of shipping off "jobs no one wants" take away income from the country who ships it off. The goal of most mega-corporations, and certain governments is to create a global economy where each country depends on another for goods and services, but not just a little like now, completely and totally. It sounds great on paper, every country working towards common goals, sharing the labor and making sure all products and services are provided to all people.... of course the last countries that tried that didn't fair so well.. or am I the only one who remembers pre-democracy USSR? (Wait.. I didn't say globalization is as bad as communism did I?) YES! They both have the same fatal flaw. They assume everyone will do what is best for everyone else. In the real world it doesn't work that way. Greed over rides the drive to do good. Which brings us back to this issue....
If these people were A) in the same country as their callers, it wouldn't have taken a year to catch them. B) If they were paid decent wages, an offer of $9.50USD wouldn't so easily pursuade them to sell the info.
So.. Step 1, sue the company util they move their call center back to the UK. Eliminate their "savings" by causing so much legal damage that they can't afford not to, but remember, you have to agree to drop the law suit, as soon as they agree to move the center back to the UK for at least 10 years. (I can hear it already, that's blackmail!) No, it's the consumer demostrating the one power they all have and using the one resource they all have access to. It's an unfortunate truth in the modern world. You can't legislate change for the good, you can't use consumer power to change behavior (not in the short term anyway) but the threat of a good old law suit can change behavior quickly... very very quickly. Don't beleive it? I have one word for you OREO. Step 2: If you can't get them to move it back, don't do business with them at all... or any other UK financial instiution that uses foreign call centers.
That my rant, respond as you wish.
Interesting reading, you may want to read this article before drawing conclusions about Vista, MacOSx or *nix virus vulnerabilities. http://www.eset.com/download/whitepapers/Eset_ALee VBJul06.pdf
I found the section on "Social Engineering" especially interesting. With the establishment of the first two MacOSX viruses, (yeah yeah, don't give me the it's a trojan, not a virus arguement that apple uses, it still gets in, exploits your system and messes it up... ) and a whole stream of new Win32 viruses, I found the final statements in theis article particulary important. Virus' don't get into your system by accident, they exploit something about the "system" to get in. The easiest exploit, the user. (Wonder when they are going to make a security vulnerability patch for us?)
There will always be code vulnerabilites in all programs that can be exploited (yes that means you Mac people too!) and there will always be people who want to exploit that flaw for personal gain...or financial gain... or just to get attention. Reducing access to Kernal level operations will go a long way to killing off older virus strains, but it won't eleminate them.
As for Symantec and Mcafee's arguements about MS.. well... I can tell you from being in the IT industry for 17 years... not having access to the kernal is the best thing they can do to these two. They missed viruses on a regular basis under 98, 2000, Me, XP and 2003 that often required full repair installs, or full reinstalls to fix. Keeping them out of the kernal may at least stop them from killing your computer's performance while they fail to protect you.